REUTERS/Bob Ealum/File
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, currently serving a suspension for the remainder of his term, plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general. According to AL.com, the judge will seek the Republican Party’s nomination to succeed Sessions, who held the seat for 20 years before being appointed by President Trump. Moore was suspended last year after being found guilty of ethics violations in his defiance of a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages. Moore had issued an administrative order informing Alabama’s 68 probate judges of their “ministerial duty” not to issue same-sex marriage licenses, despite the U.S. high court’s ruling to the contrary. This was the second time he’d faced ethics charges—the first was for his infamous refusal to allow the removal of a Ten Commandments monument in the state court’s lobby. Moore will battle for the 2018 nomination with interim Sen. Luther Strange, who was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley to serve out the remainder of Sessions’ term.